Volume 5: Bottomless Sinkhole Chapter 291: Crown of Ashes
When Ke Lan was checking the armament of the metal colossus, nearly a hundred black beetles had gathered above the isolated island. Looking up, it was a dark mass. The buzzing sound caused by the vibration of their wings even drowned out the rumbling sound of the surrounding volcanoes spewing magma.
Ke Lan thought about it and did not continue to attack with the plasma cannon, but raised the armor-piercing sword in his hand.
Although these bugs are quite powerful, their individual strength is much weaker than that of the Metal Colossus. It is really not cost-effective to waste precious energy on them.
"Let's test the Colossus's mobility first..." Ke Lan thought, bending his knees slightly, and then jumped up vigorously.
“Bang!!”
A huge thrust burst out from the legs of the metal giant, and Ke Lan's perspective suddenly shifted to nearly a hundred meters in the air. He turned around, and the armor-piercing sword in his hand just swept down all the black beetles around him.
“Bang!!”
The metal colossus fell back onto the isolated island once again. Fortunately, the shock absorption performance of the mecha itself was very excellent, and Ke Lan did not even feel the expected impact force - this had been verified before when he landed from a height of thousands of meters.
"The height of a full-strength jump is about one hundred meters..." Ke Lan muttered to himself. The reason why he could jump so high was mainly due to two reasons - first, the mass of this asteroid was not that large, and its gravity was only a dozen times that of Alpha Centauri; second, the interior of this metal colossus was equipped with an anti-gravity device.
The power of these devices is not great, and they cannot keep the Metal Colossus suspended for a long time, but they are enough to increase the Metal Colossus's maneuverability to a level far exceeding the average level of a ten-meter-class mecha.
Ke Lan jumped again, and this time, he crashed directly into the airspace where the black beetles were most densely populated. The giant sword in his hand left a circle of colorful afterimages, and the energy shield that was bound into a blade tore open the hard shells of the black beetles. The broken shells and limbs, along with the smelly internal organs, fell from the air and fell into the lava river below, splashing sparks.
During this process, a few black beetles that were lucky enough not to be affected by the sword collided with the body of the Metal Colossus. The Metal Colossus itself also has an energy shield, but unlike the way humans use energy shields, the Metal Colossus's energy shield has an extremely "intelligent" triggering method: only when an attack is about to happen, the energy shield of the corresponding part will be activated, and when not attacked, the energy shield will always be in a closed state.
Even if human warships can activate their shields intermittently, it is absolutely impossible for a large energy shield with a diameter of hundreds of meters to light up only a few palm-sized areas - this involves the issue of modifying the internal program of the shield generator, and with the existing means of mankind, this is an area that cannot be involved at all.
All humans can do is control the switch of the shield generator by controlling the supply and interruption of the energy source.
If the energy shield generator is compared to a wooden stick and the attack to be defended is compared to a wild beast, then the way humans use it is to directly pick up the wooden stick and fight the wild beast in close combat; the Alpha civilization processed the wooden stick into a fully automatic wooden crossbow, and shot the wild beast to death by standing where the wild beast could not reach...
Although Ke Lan knew that there was a huge technological gap between the two civilizations, when this gap was laid bare before him, he still felt powerless and overwhelmed.
Ke Lan felt that if Layton saw this metal giant, he would probably faint from excitement...
After two jumping attacks, the metal colossus had cleared nearly half of the black beetles in the sky above the isolated island, but the remaining beetles did not show any fear. Instead, they swarmed towards the metal colossus and rushed towards Ke Lan almost frantically.
"That's good, it saves time."
Without hesitation, Ke Lan fired a plasma cannon, vaporizing the group of black beetles that had gathered together. As for the few surviving small fish and shrimps, they were chopped into pieces by the giant sword in the blink of an eye and thrown into the lava river nearby.
"I always feel... something is wrong. These bugs are too weak... Logically speaking, the second stage of the trial shouldn't be so simple..." Ke Lan stepped on the remains of a beetle that was still struggling to death, stabbed the sword into its shell, and with a flick of the sword tip, the beetle's remains were thrown out and fell into the magma.
Although the scene on the asteroid was like purgatory, Ke Lan did not feel it was very dangerous - except for the giant plant growing on the lava.
Ke Lan was twenty kilometers away from it, but he could still feel the oppression... It was like the master of this planet. Its thick and thorny roots were deeply embedded in the earth, constantly sucking energy from deep underground.
"This plant... should be considered a prehistoric species." Ke Lan muttered to himself as he looked up at the giant flower blooming at the top of the stem.
"Objective updated: destroy the 'Crown of Ashes '." That voice rang in Ke Lan's ears again, but this time, in addition to this sentence, a lot of information was listed in Alpha text on the heads-up display in the cockpit.
"Crown of Ashes, the ancient plants growing on the asteroid 'Ashes' can directly absorb the heat from the magma and use it to nourish themselves.
According to surveys, the roots of the Crown of Ashes are located in the core of 'Ashes'. In addition to absorbing energy faster, it can also control the magnetic field and gravity on the asteroid and interfere with the asteroid's movement trajectory.
Its life form is in a very special symbiotic state with the asteroid 'Ashes'. During its fifteen-year observation period, the asteroid 'Ashes' has undergone four orbital changes, and collided with and swallowed a total of 17 small natural celestial bodies. In this process, the diameter of the asteroid 'Ashes' has expanded by 7 times and its mass has increased by 27 times, while the body of the Crown of Ashes has not undergone any obvious changes, only the surface density has increased by four times.
For some special reasons, the Crown of Ashes cannot be explored .
Asteroid 'Ashes' and symbiotic organism 'Crown of Ashes', preliminary assessment: no threat at this time.
But in a secret mission numbered 1214, a starship carrying 700 units of 'God's Blood' mistakenly entered the star field of the asteroid 'Ashes' and was captured by the abnormally enlarged 'Ashes' gravitational field. The starship crashed on the surface of the asteroid, and the God's Blood was absorbed by the Crown of Ashes, causing it to mutate greatly.
Currently, the asteroid 'Ashes' is rapidly approaching the main star and is expected to enter the main star's galaxy in one hundred and forty-three years.
Preferred solution: Send a vanguard to land on the asteroid 'Ashes' and try to destroy the Crown of Ashes;
If this plan fails, the Star Destroyer weapon will be used to destroy the Crown of Ashes and the asteroid 'Ashes' together."
After reading this long string of text, Ke Lan finally had a certain understanding of the plot of the second stage of the trial and his own mission objectives. Not to mention whether this scene is completely virtual or taken from the real history of Alpha civilization, just in terms of the difficulty of the mission, it can indeed be regarded as hell-level.
This plant, called "Crown of Ashes" by the Alpha civilization, should be the most powerful creature on this asteroid. It has the ability to manipulate asteroids, and uses this ability to control the asteroids to continuously devour nearby celestial bodies like "big fish eat small fish", gradually growing stronger.
If it continues to swallow, the mass of the asteroid "ashes" will continue to increase until it breaks away from the category of asteroids... However, this process is extremely long.
As a living organism, the Crown of Ashes definitely has a lifespan. Even if it can survive for hundreds of millions of years, it will eventually die. And hundreds of millions of years are nothing more than a brief moment in the universe.
The Crown of Ashes could perhaps be called a miracle of life, but that was the limit of what it could do. It was for this reason that the Alpha Civilization judged it to be "not a threat at the moment."
But the following plot was a bit like a melodramatic scene from a sci-fi disaster movie from the old era of mankind. Ke Lan couldn't understand why the technological level of the Alpha civilization was so high, but how could a starship transporting such an important item as the "Blood of God" get lost in the universe?
Even if the navigation system failed, wouldn't there be a frigate to escort such an important thing? At least there should be a whole escort fleet, right?
Even if there were no escort ships, the starship itself should have enough weapons and defenses, right? It was captured by the gravitational field of an asteroid and crashed... Could it be that the ship transporting the Blood of God was a civilian ship? This is too ridiculous, isn't it?
It seems... this plot is most likely fictional and exists only as part of the trial level.
Ke Lan did not have an accurate idea of how many units of God's Blood there were, but he was very clear about the function of God's Blood... Apart from anything else, a monster like the Seed of Erosion was created using a drop of God's Blood.
Ke Lan had no idea what kind of monster would be born from 700 units of God's blood.
Even if the Crown of Ashes was like an ordinary plant and would not respond to external attacks, if Ke Lan wanted to chop it down, it would probably take decades for him to cut off the thick flower stems, not to mention that this thing most likely had the ability to heal itself.
By that time, the progress of the second year's work has not been completed, but the cuts made in the first year have all grown back... With the strength of one person and one machine, he will never be able to cut down this "Crown of Ashes".
This reminded him of a silly guy named "Wu Gang" in a fairy tale...
"It seems that the 'annihilation bomb' in the equipment should be prepared to destroy the Crown of Ashes..." Ke Lan said to himself, but this thing is still in an unusable state, and no one knows what conditions must be met to unlock the usage rights.
The power of antimatter annihilation is indeed terrifying, but the Crown of Ashes is too large. If we cannot find a suitable detonation site, it will not be possible to completely destroy it with just one annihilation bomb.
Just as Ke Lan was looking at the Crown of Ashes in the distance, the content on the heads-up display was refreshed again.
"In fifteen minutes, the support fleet will bombard the roots of the flower stems of the Crown of Ashes to open the passage. The advance team needs to enter the passage and reach the root area sixty-five kilometers underground to set up the annihilation bomb and detonate it."
"What is this? A mission guide?" Ke Lan muttered. Sixty-five kilometers underground... that is undoubtedly a magma world - if calculated according to Earth standards, it has reached the mantle layer. The temperature and high pressure there are not something that ordinary creatures can withstand.
Ke Lan was very skeptical. Could he really go deep into such a place with just this metal giant?
Even if the metal colossus didn't melt, what about him inside the colossus? As long as one ten-thousandth of the heat penetrated into the cockpit, it would be enough to roast Ke Lan into a dried corpse.
This mission was probably designed for the Alphas' physique? Compared to them, Earthlings' bodies are too fragile...
"Extra tip: After setting up the annihilation bomb, please return to the surface before the explosion countdown reaches zero. If the trial participant dies in the explosion, or the annihilation bomb is destroyed before detonation, the trial will be considered a failure."
"..." Hearing this extra hint, Ke Lan couldn't help but utter a lot of dirty words in his heart. According to his thoughts, since this is a virtual scene, as long as he can complete the task, his life or death is not important. But who knew that the trial program actually required him to survive... "Don't you Alpha people have a spirit of sacrifice?"
